During a speech at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, John Brennan described violent extremists as victims of "political, economic and social forces," but said that those plotting attacks on the United States should not be described in "religious terms."

So Islamic terrorism is caused not by any kind of interior belief system held by the terrorists; they are merely "victims" of "political, economic and social forces" - in other words, terrorism is caused by things like poverty and frustration over Western capitalistic oppression. It has nothing to do with Islam, and even though the terrorists themselves say again and again that Islam is what motivates them, we should not describe them in "religious terms", which means that we should deliberately obscure our own understanding of those who have declared war against us, and how we can combat not just their physical threat, but their ideology.

What Brennan and his ilk are essentially saying is that Muslims and Arabs are basically puppets who only react to outside stimuli, and are not human beings capable of making their own choices based on their own ideas which are indepedent of any perceived "political, economic and social forces" - an idea that would be considered highly offensive if any known conservative and/or "Islamophobe" had said it.

"Nor do we describe our enemy as 'jihadists' or 'Islamists' because jihad is a holy struggle, a legitimate tenet of Islam, meaning to purify oneself or one's community, and there is nothing holy or legitimate or Islamic about murdering innocent men, women and children," Brennan said.

Brennan's presentation of jihad is whitewashed completely. For more detailed refutation of this nonsense, see my article on jihad here, and my article on the killing of civilian non-combatants in Islamic law here.

The comment comes after Brennan, in a February speech in which he described his respect for the tolerance and devotion of Middle Eastern nations, referred to Jerusalem on first reference by its Arabic name, Al-Quds.